In this exclusive video, part of RFE/RL’s “Russia & Me” interview series with 12 post-Soviet leaders, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko says his country hasn’t had a day of peace in 350 years.

The government has pledged to lift restrictions around the city center’s government buildings during the events to mark the deaths of Ukraine’s “Heavenly Hundred,” the name given to demonstrators who died in violent clashes with police in Kyiv on February 20, 2014. (Ukrainian Service)

In an informal street poll in Moscow one day after the government of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk survived a no-confidence vote, respondents overwhelmingly said they see no alternative to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Russian Service)

Riot police faced off with demonstrators demanding justice after the killing of a 5-year-old boy in the southern Kazakh village of Buryl. The suspect is a Meskhetian Turk, an ethnic minority that comprises about a third of the village’s population.

Germany’s Russian community, which is a political factor in Europe and Russia’s relations with the EU, is strongly influenced by propaganda produced by the country’s right-wing populist parties and the Kremlin. (In Russian)

The Dutch-headquartered telecom that runs one of the largest mobile communications providers in Russia said in a corporate filing on February 17 that it would acknowledge Dutch laws and “certain violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" related to its investments in Uzbekistan, and pay fines and financial penalties.

In remarks accompanying her party’s withdrawal from Ukraine’s governing coalition, Yulia Tymoshenko said a transitional government should be formed that is composed of technocrats, free of party quotas, and led by someone outside politics. (In Ukrainian)

Hennadiy Afanasyev, who testified in a Russian court against Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov but later recanted his testimony claiming it was coerced, has been transferred to a punishment cell and is being denied medical care despite worsening health.

The Polish embassy in Moscow has protested a Russian decision to ban a book by Polish journalist and World War II resistance fighter Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, on grounds that it contains “extremist content.” (In Russian)

In a roundtable discussion about the likelihood of nuclear conflict between Russia and the West, prominent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said that current tensions could lead to a war between Russia and Turkey. Commentator Jefim Fistein said that Putin’s “improvised” politics could result in conflict among Russia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Alexander Melman, a commentator for the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, called Putin’s politics a bluff, but believes the consequences are irreversible. (In Russian)

In this extended, multi-media report by front-line correspondent Levko Stek, Ukrainian soldiers who fought in Debaltseve talk about the February 18, 2015 withdrawal from what they called “the cauldron.” (In Ukrainian)

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